Science & Technology

Luxembourg based company, Airboxlab, today announces that its connected indoor air quality monitor, Foobot, is now available in the UK. Foobot is the brainchild of CEO, Jacques Touillon, who wanted to help his eldest child in his fight against asthma and after looking without success for a device to fight this invisible enemy was determined to improve his son’s health and to develop a solution himself. Foobot was born.

Foobot is the most advanced data processing smart monitor in the market, helping you take control of your indoor air quality, either by working with other home automation devices or simply by giving you detailed knowledge of something which is effectively invisible. By scanning your environment day and night and learning from your habits, Foobot will provide you warnings and actionable advice to keep your air in the home fresh and pollution free. It constantly measures VOCs, PM2.5s, CO2, temperature and humidity, and logs them in five minute intervals to find the best solution for air quality needs.

Poor air quality can impair our health, leading to symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, eye, nose and throat infections and can aggravate allergies and asthma. To protect our health and preserve our quality of life, indoor air quality is fundamental. Foobot turns invisible indoor pollution into a tangible, visible thing thanks to its soft coloured LED light, meaning air quality can be easily viewed and assessed and appropriate action can be taken if required to improve it.

Most consumers who purchase Foobot use it as a source of knowledge, empowering them to make better choices and decisions. Foobot provides the right information at the right time to take care of existing problems and prevent the creation of new ones. This could be as simple as opening a window but with Foobot you’ll know exactly when it’s required and for how long – very useful if it’s freezing cold outside or you live on a main road! The Foobot app gives you access to real time information, so over a longer period of time, helps you understand which household products, carpets or even furniture are releasing a frequent dose of pollutant. With this knowledge, you can amend your behaviour and habits to avoid pollution production. It also creates a more comfortable living space for the whole family by ensuring it is at the right temperature and humidity. Temperature can also affect the release of pollutants in your house, such as when temperatures rise, the glue present in everyday furniture emits more formaldehyde, a well-known carcinogenic VOC.

Foobot can also work closely with other smart home devices with a connected thermostat such as Google Nest to control your home’s temperature or can communicate directly with Amazon Echo.When any pollutants exceed healthy levels, Foobot will relay this information allowing Alexa to talk about the problem to you via voice and suggest possible solutions. Foobot can essentially be an active part of the smart home ecosystem helping trigger the ventilation, filtration, purification system or appliances. With the help of IFTTT, Foobot can also connect to 120+ home appliances, including HIVE, the connected thermostat from British Gas.

Foobot uses internal sensors to check for pollution in the form of chemicals and particulate matter, which are up to five times more common indoors as a result of confinement and alerts you via its companion app and the LEDs on the device itself. The device is sensitive to:

Indoor air pollution isn’t just a threat at home. We spend an average of 90% of our lives indoors, whether in a school, office, hotel, hospital or at the shopping centre. Aside from long-term health benefits, breathing clean air keeps people awake and productive, so they can work, study and play.

Clean air is even more critical for people suffering or recovering from health issues. At hospitals, well-circulated air can minimise the spread of airborne diseases. Since children are particularly susceptible to asthma, clean air at schools is perhaps more important than at home given their high occupancies. In the UK, around 5.4 million people suffer from asthma that pollution can exacerbate. For those affected, air pollution reduces life expectancy by an average of over eleven years. This is nearly 5% of all annual UK deaths but amazingly, there is very little awareness of the problem, making air pollution an invisible public health crisis that affects much of the UK.

For more information on the subject in the form of a white paper on the growing need for data in managing indoor air quality, click here

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It might have been released stateside 6 months ago, Google Home has now been released in the UK with some optimisation for the UK consumer. This is a hands-free smart speaker powered by the Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. It’s your assistant, triggered by saying, “Ok Google”.

Here we take a look at the basic setup and first operation before a full review.

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It might have been released stateside 6 months ago, Google Home has now bee released in the UK with some optimisation for the UK consumer. This is a hands-free smart speaker powered by the Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. It’s your assistant, triggered by saying, “Ok Google”.

Here we take a look at the basic setup and first operation before a full review.

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Stars, Constellations, Mythological Characters, Planets and Galaxies are all waiting to be explored within the Universe2go star viewer. This could be the perfect gift for a budding astronomy lover or for a young mind who wants to begin to learn about the stars above.

Out of the box the star viewer has a hard plastic casing and feels like a solid premium product. Available from Amazon for £85 this product promises to transport you to another world.

The top of the star viewer can be lifted and this is where you put your phone when running the app Universe2go. The star viewer is different to other VR headsets by using a design similar to the telescope the image from your screen is mirrored.

With a removable front of the star viewer you can see the world around you with the screen of the stars still being projected allowing you to align what you are seeing on-screen to the actual stars above.

The app itself is free to download on the play store and with a unique code in the box allowing you to access exclusive content. As you scan the skies you can see where stars and planets are situated with interesting facts being displayed. I was impressed by the depth of knowledge made available. I gave the star viewer to my kids aged 6 and 8 they thought it was cool it soon lost interest after they got to see Saturn and a few different constellations. This gift would have to be for a budding astronomer as it only has the singular use as a star viewer.

This is what makes this product unique, although the design is not entirely user-friendly. Being visually impaired and wearing glasses I found myself in a struggle with the viewer I could use it without my glasses although the writings on the screen required me to get my glasses on to read it. At 99 euros this product is perhaps overpriced bit if you are buying it for someone who has a telescope and a real hunger for the heavens above us then it is a good purchase.

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The Mi Band 2 is the latest fitness tracker from Xiaomi. Perfectly pricey to encompass everything a fitness fanatic needs to keep track of their exercise.
Record daily motion data, Xiaomi bracelet to help you record all-day event, calculate walking distance, and calorie consumption.
Smart Vibration alarm clock, simulate wake up naturally status: You can set the alarm on the APP, in front of the preset alarm within 30 minutes, with a slight vibration to wake you from a shallow sleep, when to wake up slowly shallow sleep, naturally wake up closer.

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devolo Home Control ensures you have full control over your home. Make your living spaces even more secure, convenient and energy-efficient with the first DIY smart home. devolo home automation makes intelligent living easier than ever: Just unpack and get started − you can enjoy the comfort in your new smart home.

devolo home automation lets you simplify everyday household life in a hassle-free way. You can easily and intuitively control heating, lighting and electrical devices the same way you control home security and energy consumption. You have control over anything at all times in your living spaces at the touch of a button, via timer or with the app.

You can easily design your smart home according to your individual needs without any previous knowledge. The home automation functions on the building block principle: Select the devices you would like to use in your living spaces from the available devolo Home Control devices. The heart of your smart home is the devolo Home Control Central Unit, which you can simply plug into any electrical socket. Subsequently program all devices used via the Central Unit. These are just some of the possibilities offered to you for your own intelligent home:

Automatically switch on lights and appliances via Key-Fob Switch from a distance of 100 m

Switch on all devices on the go via your smartphone, tablet or computer

Gain insight in the current energy consumption via app

The smart home components of our devolo Home Control Series are programmed once, all operations run automatically: The lighting switches on at a desired time on its own, the heating automatically reacts to the room temperature, and your Motion Sensor notifies you of any unusual movement via e-mail or text. You decide whether to operate the devices via app, timer or simply via the switch from your favourite spot.

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Never afraid to try new things, Archos have ventured into the growing market of Quadcopters and released a Drone. The lightweight nature allows it to fly around easily and rapidly. For the most daring of you, preprogrammed figures will allow you to try new things such as a 360-degree flip. The ARCHOS Drone is also capable of reaching a 25km/h max speed and can fly as high as 50 meters. Fly high with the ARCHOS Drone! Equipped with a camera, the ARCHOS Drone is capable of filming HD videos.

Use your smartphone (Android and iOS) to control your ARCHOS Drone thanks to the ARCHOS Drone Remote app, available on Google Play and on the App Store. If you’d rather control your ARCHOS Drone with a remote, that’s also possible!

Included in the box, the controller allows you to fly your drone while also serving as a stand for your smartphone to view live footage, for ideal flying conditions.

Information management software firm, Ideagen, has announced the after dinner speaker for its ‘Horizons’ Customer Conference to be held in Nottingham on 1-2 November.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE, described by the Guinness Book of Records as “the world’s greatest living explorer”, will entertain delegates with stories of his adventures including being the only man alive to have travelled around the Earth’s circumpolar surface and crossing the Antarctica on foot.

His after dinner performance will resonate with the overall theme of Ideagen’s ‘Horizons’ conference, which will offer delegates insights into safety and risk management as well as performance, quality and audit.

Ideagen’s Chief Customer Officer, Ben Dorks, said: “I am delighted that we have managed to secure such a prestigious, legendary and charismatic speaker as Sir Ranulph.

“As the world’s greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph will captivate our conference with tales from his many dangerous expeditions, including riverboat, hovercraft, man haul sledge, skidoo, Land Rover and skiing treks.

“He is living proof of successful safety and risk management, which is in line with our overall theme for the ‘Horizons’ conference and I am personally looking forward to welcoming Sir Ranulph to our event.”

As well as Sir Ranulph, Ideagen’s conference will also include some presentations from customers such as Network Rail, Telefonica and Johnson Matthey.

The ‘Horizons’ event will focus on the company’s Q-Pulse, Pentana, Enlighten and Covalent solutions that are used by thousands of organisations and millions of individuals around the world.

Mr Dorks added: “This event is an important milestone in the Ideagen calendar as it provides us with the opportunity to unveil the new and exciting functionality we have been developing for our key products.

“The conference also presents our customers with an ideal platform in which to converse directly with us, helping us sculpt our product roadmaps in line with customer expectations and requirements.”

David Hornsby, Ideagen’s CEO, said: “Horizons will bring together customers from many industries and over the two days they will see what we have planned in terms of our product range.

“I am personally looking forward to meeting everyone and I am also particularly excited by the calibre of after dinner speaker and customer presentations we have this year.

“It is promising to be a wonderful event for all connected to Ideagen.”

Ideagen is one of the UK’s fastest growing software companies, reporting its seventh consecutive year of revenue and EBITDA growth. The company has over 300 staff globally including a global partner network.

The ‘Horizons’ event will take place between Tuesday, November 1st and Wednesday, November 2nd at the East Midlands Conference Centre & Orchard Hotel in Nottingham.

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The MiSK Foundation was founded by and works under the patronage of the Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s an NGO that focuses on the country’s youth, and aims to create genuine opportunities to forge links with business and young people of both sexes in both KSA and Great Britain. The event is focused on youth enterprise and fostering talent, creative potential and tech innovation for health provision among the UK and Saudi Arabia and one of its key aims is to drive awareness and provide a platform for female entrepreneurs.

The MiSK Hackathon 2016 is a live broadcast, real-time dual nation event themed around the ‘Medical Internet of Things’. The Hackathon will involve mixed Saudi/British male and female teams – up to 400 participants in total – and will be the first of its kind, each country joined by a live satellite broadcast, taking place on 25-27 November in London and Riyadh. The challenge is to create a prototype technology innovation over 48 hours for improving health care or health care provision, which will benefit both countries and the world at large. Winners will receive US $10,000 to bring their idea to concept stage and have the opportunity to present their idea to a panel of investors.

Leading academic institutions, businesses and organisations in the UK and KSA have already confirmed their support and involvement including: Saudi British Joint Business Council (SBJBC); Jan Ward, former UK Female Entrepreneur of the Year and CEO of Corrotherm; leaders from blue-chip businesses such as BT, Orange and Microsoft; founders of start-ups and SME’s including SWAG’R, and others still to be announced.